Here's what it was like spending a whole day photographing the solar eclipse

While not in the path of totality, I found myself during eclipse weekend on a homestead in the heart of central Pennsylvania.

Taz, our host's Australian Shepherd in front of an old horse trailer.
Tyler Greenfield
Here, all food comes from the garden. To my amazement, I gazed upon a row of melons seeming right at home above the Mason-Dixon.

Sunday was a chance to walk the property and enjoy the company of our host and their animals. My girlfriend Rika and I had come here initially to stay for a night, after visiting a friend playing a gypsy jazz gig nearby. With the eclipse around the corner, we decided to stay, and thankfully our hosts were able to accommodate the extension with an unused camper. What started as a relaxing weekend became an opportunity to see the solar eclipse in a more rural setting, away from the light pollution and atmospheric haze of the city.

Afterwards, I thought it may be useful to share the experience and challenges of what at first seemed like a simple task: shooting the sun.

My partner-in-crime Rika gazing with Taz.

On the morning of the eclipse, I pulled out my gear to practice on the full sun. Mostly clear skies were a good sign though by no means indicative of what was to come.

3/

GEAR: Camera, Adapter, Lens

5D Mark II with Quantaray 500mm f8 lens and 2x teleconverter. The lens and teleconverter use an M42 type screw mount and can fit the 5D body using an M42 to EOS adapter. My 135mm lens above and a US quarter below for size comparison.
Tyler Greenfield

The lens pictured above has a tripod mount seen just above the quarter. This helped me stabilize the motion, as even a good gust of wind could cause problems at such a long focal length. I also used Canon's EOS utility for remote shooting from a laptop, to minimize motion problems caused by pushing the shutter button.

4/

GEAR: DIY filter screen holder

The filter polymer material held together between two cut-out cardboard pieces using a small neodymium magnet on each corner.
Tyler Greenfield

The black polymer material is a neutral density (ND) 5.0 equivalent, so it reduces the light to the sensor by 16 2/3 f-stops; in simpler terms, it lets in 0.001% of the light that would reach the sensor if no material were in front of the lens.

Buying a full sheet of the material on eBay was a lot cheaper than buying a specific solar filter, and also allowed me to build any size filter while having material left over to use for viewing glasses or other lenses. The filter material needed some kind of apparatus to actually hold it together and attach to the lens. I cut out two equally-sized pieces of cardboard and attempted a circular cut in the middle. The material could then be placed between the pieces of cardboard and held together by using opposing magnets on each corner.

In haste, I didn't give myself a good way to attach the whole thing to the lens - luckily the ridge on the inset of cardboard was deep enough to simply hang on the lens. It worked, but I was at the whim of the winds, quite literally - a gust too strong would blow it off. And during an eclipse, black polymer is like gold.

5/

GEAR: DIY filter screen holder (back)

By putting the bottom magnets a little further toward the corners than the front magnets, it pulls the film in opposite directions and keeps it taut.
Tyler Greenfield

6/

The talk of the eclipse seemed to inspire something in our host, and that's when we decided to have an eclipse party at fellow homesteader Dennis' property. Around noon, we drove about two miles to a plot of land recently acquired by Dennis, self-proclaimed "City Boy Homesteader."

Dennis' dog Eddie Murphy rests near the tripod leg.
Tyler Greenfield

A view stretched from east to west and gave a clear indication of the weather pattern for the day's remainder. Gazing up just after midday, the eastern sky was all clear and the opposite was tempting defeat - a gradient of dark gray. With an upcoming eclipse peak time of around 14:40 EST, it did not look promising.

Laying on the table under a tarp was Dennis' welding helmet. We compared the sunlight through each material and noticed the helmet's visor did not block nearly as much light. It left the sun's highlights blown out and with a greenish tint. The extra black polymer was turning out to be useful, and we cut small pieces to cover lenses on phones and GoPros.

7/

Eddie Murphy was also disappointed:

Eddie Murphy's face is slightly out of focus as I was standing closer than the Quantaray's 33 foot minimum focusing distance. Shot at 500mm f8.
Tyler Greenfield

From the eclipse peak onward, the clouds were thick and unrelenting. Every hole in its facade promised only temporary redemption. A storm reached us and let loose. I got soaked but hurried to get the equipment safely under the tarp, while continuously glancing at the sky for that eluding celestial body. At one point all that stood between the camera and its doom was a razor-thin Patagonia jacket. For some reason I enjoyed the risk of it all.

8/

Finally, the sun emerged for just a few minutes.

Blown highlights with no solar filter in front of lens, and near 100% cloud cover. Warning: Staring at this picture may cause blindness.
Tyler Greenfield

9/

By this time, the sun was a little less than half-eclipsed:

With the solar filter added, the sun can be properly exposed and the remainder of the frame is black. Shot at 500mm f8 and cropped.
Tyler Greenfield

10/

At the next cloud parting, I added the 2x teleconverter to get a 1000mm equivalent focal length:

Only a fraction of the eclipse remained, but passing clouds created some surprisingly nice effects. Shot at 1000mm/f8 equivalent.
Tyler Greenfield

11/

Here I was playing with split toning.

Shot at 1000mm/f8 equivalent.
Tyler Greenfield

12/

A word on teleconverters

Unbranded 2x teleconverter. Attaching this to the lens doubled the focal length while losing two f-stops of light.
Tyler Greenfield

The latter two shots were taken with the 2x teleconverter (TC), giving 1000mm equivalent focal length. If no cropping were done, these shots would show the sun twice as large within the frame when compared to the sun in an uncropped 500mm shot. Since the 500mm shot was cropped, it gives the impression of the sun being bigger than it really was in the frame.

Herein lies the debate about teleconverters: Why not just crop a shot to be twice as large instead of shooting with a 2x TC? It seems like it's really a trade-off based on the quality of the TC. With it, you will technically have more pixels in the subject area of the frame compared to the same subject shot without it; however, because a TC adds additional glass between the lens and the camera sensor, the decision will depend on the quality of that glass. Also, a 2X TC will lose two f-stops of light - when shooting the very bright sun though, this aspect was not a concern.

In this case I noticed the equivalent-size shots without the TC were perhaps just a little sharper than the "teleconverted" companions.

13/

What I learned

The redder hue of this shot is simply a result of changing the white balance. Shot at 1000mm/f8 equivalent.
Tyler Greenfield

As much reading as I did to prepare for how to shoot the eclipse, I still felt unprepared as the moment came around. Focusing was a lot harder than I expected. Sometimes a lens will focus to infinity if you turn it all the way, but you can't always count on that, especially when using a manual lens adapted to a DSLR.

Another thought on focusing: When using Canon's EOS Utility for remote shooting, you can open the camera's live view and focus from the laptop. I found it easier to use the camera's screen because of its 10x zoom feature, which can be really necessary to fine-tune the focus.

Either way, I found it essential to have some kind of cover hood (any jacket or fabric that lets no light through) over the screen while focusing. Without it, it was just too bright out to see the screen. At least for a moment I could believe I was in another time, peeking through bellows on large format.

One difficulty was also unexpected: Simply finding the sun in the sky was hard for me at 500mm, and especially hard at 1000mm. As the sun was mostly behind clouds, there was only a few minutes to react (find sun, focus, meter exposure and remote shoot) when it peeked through. Even the slightest movement on the tripod adjustments could move the sun out of the frame. I think in this regard it would be very useful to trace out the its path ahead of time.

14/

Next time I would:

- Try using frame stacking to get the correctly exposed sun superimposed with a correctly exposed sky.

- Shoot RAW video footage. On the Mark II camera, this is possible using Magic Lantern firmware and a fast enough CF card.

- Drink more beer!

The cloud cover turned out to be a blessing in disguise by providing some more character to the shots and keeping me quick on my feet. With a little patience and planning, I think anyone with an interest in astrology and photography could find the process rewarding.